Mm-dd-yy

[Plotinus]

I believe - off-hand, and with no evidence - that the American way of writing dates is in fact more old-fashioned. If you look at old books - from the nineteenth or early twentieth century - they tend to write dates American-style. I suspect that what's happened is that everyone else has changed to the more logical style and the Americans have stayed where they are - just like metric/imperial.

It's a little like -ise and -ize for words like "customise/customize". Either spelling is acceptable in English no matter where you are, but "-ize" is more common in America whilst "-ise" is usually used elsewhere. If you look at those old books again you'll find that "-ize" is much more common. I think that it's the Americans who have been conservative whilst language has become more logical elsewhere. "-ise" is more logical, you see, because if you use the "-ize" system there are some words that still always take "-ise" - such as "circumcise". You can never write "circumsize" even if you're using "-ize" normally. So it's simpler just to "-ise" everything and not have to worry.

 

[Turner]

I haven't heard a sound explenation yet. Habit isn't enough for me.

I think it's the best you're gonna get. I was taught this way, and my parents/teachers were taught the same way, and their parents/teachers were taught the same way.... it's tradition! I think the best answer is just american contrariness... I can't think of any reason why... Maybe I should go google it...

Which makes sense, because it's consistent. If you had the years or days in the middle, that would be silly. As long as months are in the middle, it makes sense.

Exactly why I prefer yyyymmdd... It's also like a counter or odometer, albeit a weird one.

 

[Plotinus]

Oh, but I'll tell you what really puzzles me - why do Americans write addresses on letters in such a strange way? They write things like -

85000 Main Street
Flat 2
Kansas City
South Dakota

Now, I know that the incredibly high street number is due to the fact that instead of numbering houses on a street, Americans number them in a town - so there is only one Number 1 per town, as opposed to one per street as elsewhere. But why on earth do you have the house number first and then the flat number? Isn't it far more logical to have the flat number first? An American friend told me that this is because you go to the house number first and then look for the flat. Well, by that logic you ought to put the state first, then the town, and so on in increasing order of accuracy.

 

[Steph]

yyyymmdd is very convenient when you want to sort things according to their date, because a simple alphabetic sort does it.

 

[Mise]

Exactly why I prefer yyyymmdd... It's also like a counter or odometer, albeit a weird one.

Yeah, or a digital watch, which is hours : minutes : seconds. Or our entire number system!

yyyymmdd is very convenient when you want to sort things according to their date, because a simple alphabetic sort does it.

That's a good point!

 

[AciDemon]

yyyymmdd is very convenient when you want to sort things according to their date, because a simple alphabetic sort does it.

true! that's why i name my files etc...in this order. of course in 'normal' life i use dd.mm.yyyy as all non-americans

 

[Plexus]

Now, I know that the incredibly high street number is due to the fact that instead of numbering houses on a street, Americans number them in a town.

What? That's not true. It's per street in every instance I'm aware of.

 

[Turner]

Oh, but I'll tell you what really puzzles me - why do Americans write addresses on letters in such a strange way? They write things like -

85000 Main Street
Flat 2
Kansas City
South Dakota

Now, I know that the incredibly high street number is due to the fact that instead of numbering houses on a street, Americans number them in a town - so there is only one Number 1 per town, as opposed to one per street as elsewhere. But why on earth do you have the house number first and then the flat number? Isn't it far more logical to have the flat number first? An American friend told me that this is because you go to the house number first and then look for the flat. Well, by that logic you ought to put the state first, then the town, and so on in increasing order of accuracy.

Not sure why you're saying that americans number them in a town...there are plenty of places around here (co-incidently, Kansas City) that have the same house numbers on different streets. As for the flat number (apartment?), it's like putting things in a box. First you have to get to the box, then open it up and find the smaller part inside. So first you have the street number, say, 4800 Main Street (which roughly is supposed to tell you that the house is located at 48th & Main Street. Of course, this breaks down when you have intersections like Main & Broadway...) then you have the apartment number, say Apt 210. So it ends up looking like this:

4800 Main Street Apartment 210
Kansas City, Mo 64010.

But if we're going to use that logic, bigger containers to smaller containers, the address should look like this:

4800 Main Street Apartment 210
Missouri, Kansas City 64010

That looks really weird...

 

[Steph]

I thought is was numbered after the distance since the beginning of the street?

4800 = 4800 yards (or whatever funny unit you are using to measure distance) from one end of the street?

 

[Turner]

I thought is was numbered after the distance since the beginning of the street?

4800 = 4800 yards (or whatever funny unit you are using to measure distance) from one end of the street?

Not around here...maybe that's how it started out. But generally, when you go to 48th & Main, the houses there start at 4800. The one 'lower' could be 4738, or 4750...depends. They'd have to put houses every two feet tho for those that get up to 4798....that'd be pretty tight.

Err, two yards, I guess... that would still be really close together.

 

[JohnRM]

Well, you know, the American education system is having enough trouble with the basics, don't try to dump the metric system on us, it would collapse the whole structure of education, in this country.........






.........if that hasn't already happened.



"the metric system was promulgated by the French"

This may be another reason why Americans do not use the metric system.

 

[King Alexander]

In Greece, --/--/-- refers to day/month/year. House numbers refer to the specific street only: furthermore, each side of the street is divined to single/non-single numbers,e.g.: one side is numbered 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, ect.. and the other side is numbered 2, 4, 6, 8, etc... This way, you always know how far you're from an address, because there is a balance between the 2 sides, and you even know from what side to walk to find the address.

Where I got a bit confused in the begining, were in Germany: They start counting from one side of the street(e.g.: 1, 2, 3, ect...), and when the street reach the end, they continue from the opposite side on the end of the street.

 

[JohnRM]

House numbers, in America, are like that, as well.

1,3,5,7,9
2,4,6,8

 

[Steph]

In Tokyo, the houses are numbered in the order of construction in the streets I think.

So you can have 2, 87, 4, 23, 127...

 

[King Alexander]

In Tokyo, the houses are numbered in the order of construction in the streets I think.

So you can have 2, 87, 4, 23, 127...

That must be really time-consuming, if you're looking for an address. Just imagine, how much time would you need to find a number in a big street.

 

[Mongoloid Cow]

But in Japan, they have a highly efficient postcode system to compensate (you can track the location of a house to a very small area and on the road it is on by how they do it. Personally, I don't get it)

As for the dd-mm-yy, Americans are just weird...

 

[Dr Jimbo]

I believe a kilogram was originally defined as the mass of a cubic decimeter of water, but it's now the mass of a particular hunk of metal in Paris.
Similarly, a meter used to be one ten millionth the distance from the equator to the pole but is now a silly fraction of a light second.
And a second used to be 1/(24*60*60) th of a day, but is now a precise number of ossicaltions of a cesium atom.

The original definitions made some sense, but were altered as our ability to measure got more accurate and it was realised they were a bit off. The old definitions work for most everyday purposes.

Anyway, dd/mm/yy(yy) makes sense to me. US dates always require a bit of head-scratching to translate

 

[ferenginar]

1 Kg = 1 litre of water = cubic decimetre
1 metric tonne = 1 Kl = 1 cubic metre

Definitions of the Seven Basic S I Units

metre [m]
The metre is the basic unit of length. It is the distance light travels, in a vacuum, in 1/299792458th of a second.

kilogram [kg]
The kilogram is the basic unit of mass. It is the mass of an international prototype in the form of a platinum-iridium cylinder kept at Sevres in France. It is now the only basic unit still defined in terms of a material object, and also the only one with a prefix[kilo] already in place.

second
The second is the basic unit of time. It is the length of time taken for 9192631770 periods of vibration of the caesium-133 atom to occur.

ampere [A]
The ampere is the basic unit of electric current. It is that current which produces a specified force between two parallel wires which are 1 metre apart in a vacuum.It is named after the French physicist Andre Ampere (1775-1836).

kelvin [K]
The kelvin is the basic unit of temperature. It is 1/273.16th of the thermodynamic temperature of the triple point of water. It is named after the Scottish mathematician and physicist William Thomson 1st Lord Kelvin (1824-1907).

mole [mol]
The mole is the basic unit of substance. It is the amount of substance that contains as many elementary units as there are atoms in 0.012 kg of carbon-12.

candela [cd]
The candela is the basic unit of luminous intensity. It is the intensity of a source of light of a specified frequency, which gives a specified amount of power in a given direction.

 

[Dann]

The Chinese have always been using yy-mm-dd since who knows when.

A couple thousand years later, it miraculously fits exactly with computerized data sorting.

 

[bobgote]

As for mm-dd-yy, I think it's quite illogical to have it that way, since a day is smaller than a month, and a month is smaller than a year, so having it dd-mm-yy is much more consistent.

Yup.

I'm using yy-mm-dd at work, and dd-mm-yy in everyday life

The only point of this is to get chronological file structure in computers. There is no other point as far as i can see.

and who cares how we got the meter measurement? anyone? the point is, it is a standard and pretty much everyone uses it.